Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/water/page/12/)
By Emily Lawler
Nov. 28, 2009
LANSING, Mich. — Forget letting the bedbugs bite – even having them in your home is a danger. The entire United States is dealing with a resurgence of these pesky parasites, which feed on human blood. “They can cause red itchy lesions,” said Kim Signs, a zoonotic disease epidemiologist with Michigan’s Department of Community Health.
By Mehak Bansil
Nov. 27, 2009
LANSING–Lake sturgeon, one of the oldest surviving species from prehistoric times, is making a small comeback in the Great Lakes region. “They’ve increased about a couple of percent since their lowest numbers, but at least the populations aren’t going down anymore,” said Bruce Manny, a fishery biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor. The increase is due in part to a spawning project in Black Lake, an inland lake in Cheboygan County. According to a report in the Journal of Applied Ichthyology, 40 percent of the lake sturgeon released into Black Lake as part of the project survived their first winter, but Manny said, there are no estimates on the actual number due to a lack of comprehensive studies.
By Jeff Gillies
Nov. 24, 2009
Walleye swimming in Michigan’s largest watershed are 80 percent less contaminated with PCBs than they were in 1997, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Great Lakes Research. PCBs are toxic, potentially cancer-causing chemicals that were used in electrical insulators, hydraulic equipment and some paints. The U.S. and many other countries banned PCB production in the 1970s and 1980s
PCB levels in Saginaw Bay walleye have dropped 80 percent since 1997, said study author Chuck Madenjian, a fishery biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Great Lakes Science Center. He credits the drop to a dredging project in 2000 and 2001 that pulled more than 340,000 cubic yards of polluted sediment out of the Saginaw River, the bay’s main tributary.
By Alice Rossignol
Nov. 13, 2009
There are few places where a government agency lines up for a permit just like everybody else. One of them is at the Lower Wisconsin Riverway Board. Founded in 1989, the board is made up of Wisconsin citizens who enforce a series of aesthetic regulations along 92 miles of the Wisconsin River and nearly 80,000 acres of land. “The uniqueness to having a citizen board is that it represents the people who live in the area.
Jeff Gillies
jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 28, 2009
Great Lakes climate science is often stuck in the past. Studies show that all five lakes have warmed up over the past century. But they rarely predict how much the water will warm in the next one. A new tool from Canada could help buck that trend, warning policymakers of new threats from foreign organisms and other waterborne consequence of global climate change.
OH) The Toledo Blade – To the layman, a conference being held at the University of Toledo this week may appear to be just the latest in a confusing collection of Great Lakes events. But to those who intimately track the science behind the Earth’s largest source of fresh surface water, this week’s International Association of Great Lakes Research conference says a lot about UT’s ambition to become an academic powerhouse for environmental studies.
It also illustrates how much more value northwest Ohio has started to place on the environment after years of neglect, from more fish and algae research to being reinvigorated – with the university’s help – by solar power and other forms of alternative energy that can help the lakes, officials said. More